Wall St. rebounds at end of volatile week

WALL STREET ended sharply higher after a volatile session on Friday, with the Nasdaq rebounding at the end of a week that saw it extend losses to about 10% from its previous record high.

All three main indexes bounced back from losses earlier in the day, with investors in recent sessions spooked by rising interest rates that offset optimism about an economic rebound.

Microsoft rallied 2.15%, boosting the S&P 500 more than any other stock, with gains in Alphabet, Apple and Oracle also lifting the index.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields hit a new one-year high of 1.626% after nonfarm payrolls increased by 379,000 jobs last month, blowing past a rise of 182,000 forecast by economists polled by Reuters.

Focus is also on a $1.9-trillion coronavirus aid bill as a sharply divided US Senate began what was expected to be a long debate over a slew of amendments on how that money would be spent.

The Nasdaq logged its third straight weekly decline after a recent spike in Treasury yields dented demand for high-flying technology stocks.

Rising interest rates disproportionately hurt high-growth tech companies because investors value them based on earnings expected years into the future, and high interest rates hurt the value of future earnings more than the value of earnings made in the short term.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is around 8% below its Feb. 12 closing high.

Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said his firm in recent days has bought shares in a handful of growth companies whose prices have been pummeled in the recent sell-off.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.85% to end at 31,496.3 points, while the S&P 500 gained 1.95% to 3,841.94.

The Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.55% to 12,920.15.

In a busy session, volume on US exchanges was 17.4 billion shares, compared with the 15.3 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.8%, the Dow added 1.8% and the Nasdaq lost 2.1%.

In Friday’s session, the S&P 500 energy sector index surged 3.9% to over a one year high as oil prices soared.

Oracle Corp. jumped more than 6% after Barclays upgraded the business software maker to “overweight” expecting improvement in the IT spending environment. —